Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21911801b&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #118.01
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
If your picture of the Milky Way is that it consists of a bulge, disk, and halo, you might want to attend this talk. I will review the many recent advances in understanding the global structure of our Galaxy, with a principal emphasis on the disk and inner galaxy. Radio parallaxes to maser sources, extinction distances to dark clouds, and large-scale near and mid-infrared mapping of red clump giants now allow us to map out different components (star formation, gas, and old stars) of the Galaxy without the serious issues that plagued earlier efforts. The Milky Way contains two (possibly three) bar-like components with a complex morphology. Intense star formation with several massive stellar clusters and kiloparsec-scale superbubbles are seen at near end of the bar, while the situation at the far end of the bar is less clear. Three new sections of gaseous spiral arms have been discovered since 2000; their estimated locations hint that the Milky Way may be quite symmetric. In the outer reaches of the Galaxy, the stellar disk warps in a qualitatively similar way to the HI disk, and possibly truncates. After reviewing these advance, I will summarize what we don't yet know about the Galaxy. After 60 years of effort, I'd say we're about 50% done.
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